Rhode Island warms to wind power

Portsmouth turbine stirring interest from rest of state

Providence Business News, April 22, 2006
By Brandie Jefferson, Journal Environment Writer

At first, it took a little getting used to the 164-foot-tall, 660-kilowatt wind-power generator at Portsmouth Abbey School, according to Brother Joseph Byron.

But now, with the $1.2-million project completed for just shy of a month, he said, people are actually finding the beauty of it.

“It looks sculptural,” Byron said.

But while the school supports the project, what’s the opinion of the surrounding communities, which have decried similar projects in other states?

All positive, according to an informal survey commissioned by the state.

“There wasn’t one single person who doesn’t think they like it more than their neighbor,” said Lefteris Pavlides, a professor at Roger Williams University. “They think other people don’t like it because of all the negative publicity.”

Gov. Donald L. Carcieri is hoping that projects such as the Portsmouth Abbey wind turbine will prove to Rhode Islanders that wind power can be successful in the state.

In January, Carcieri announced that he wanted 15 percent of the state’s total electricity demand being supplied by wind power. The R.I. Economic Development Corporation was charged with conducting a study looking at the feasibility of using wind power in the state.

The governor also named Andrew C. Dzykewicz as his chief energy adviser, a new post within the administration. Dzykewicz said the governor is pushing the wind power initiative to cut back on the state’s reliance on fossil fuel-based energy sources.

Part of the need comes from cost. Unlike fuel-sensitive energy sources, such as natural gas-generated electricity, wind-powered electricity generation would not be subject to price shifts.

“Even if you build something today that’s pretty close to market price, certainly, within a short period of time, it will become a very cost-effective means of producing electricity,” Dzykewicz said.

And, in the case of Portsmouth Abbey, the state has doled out funding to help make wind power a reality. The state awarded the school $450,000 for the project through the Renewable Energy Fund, an account for which Rhode Island residents pay three-tenths of a cent per kilowatt hour in their monthly electricity bills.

Some communities within the state have begun to examine the possibility of using wind power on their own. Portsmouth has applied for a $25,000 grant from the Renewable Energy Fund to look at the use of turbines for several of its schools.

Raytheon, the defense contractor with a facility in Portsmouth, also has expressed interest.

However, Dzykewicz said that nothing concrete has moved forward aside from the Portsmouth Abbey project.

“Most municipalities, I think, are awaiting the completion of this EDC study,” Dzykewicz said. “That’s going to identify places where it’s really worthwhile going forward.”

What the state is hoping to avoid, he said, is a situation like Cape Wind on Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts. That project, which proposes to put a 420-megawatt wind farm near the coast of Cape Cod, has been heavily criticized by elected officials and residents.

Rhode Island’s initiative could be of a similar scope as Cape Wind, Dzykewicz said.

However, it would most likely not be centralized like the Massachusetts project.

But Pavlides said part of the reason the Cape Wind project has been so fiercely opposed is because coal interests have dumped large sums of money into killing it. And those interests, he said, have the potential to lose money if the “genie is out of the bottle.”

While his informal survey produced positive reactions about the project, Pavlides said a more formal one will be completed in May. The reason for the delay, he said, was to give people the chance to see the Portsmouth Abbey turbine operating.

Dzykewicz said the state is hoping to show that wind turbines are not dangerous or intrusive in part through the Portsmouth Abbey project.

“What seems to happen is that before people see these things in operation, there is opposition,” Dzykewicz said. “Once they go into operation, people fall in love with them.”